A Guide to the Thomas Barrett Narrative, 1885

Account by Barrett
(1809-1892), physician and minister of the Disciples of Christ Church, of the
Gainesville trial of a group of anti-secessionists in 1862, the hanging of the
Unionists, and the subsequent court martial of the jury members by Federal
occupation forces.

Thomas C. Barrett, jurist during the Great
Hanging at Gainesville, son of Thomas and Jane (Christian) Barrett, was born in
Anson County, North Carolina, on June 21, 1809. After the trial ended, Barrett,
fearing reprisals, decided to move his family to a safer place. The Barretts
moved to Mount Vernon in the fall of 1863 and remained there until June 1865,
when they moved to Bell County. In Bell County Barrett heard that federal
soldiers were arresting people who had committed crimes during the Civil War.
He spent several nights sleeping out of doors and hiding before he decided to
leave Texas until proper authorities were again in control. He went to Mount
Pleasant, Mississippi, in January 1866 and visited relatives in Tennessee
before returning to Gainesville in December 1866. He demanded a jury trial for
his part in the hangings and was found not guilty on December 11, 1868. In 1885
Barrett published his memoirs in a book, The Great
Hanging at Gainesville. He deprecated the role of emotion in the jury's
decisions and argued that his being on the jury had saved large numbers of
lives. He spent the remainder of his life as a preacher for the Church of
Christ, a doctor, and a farmer in Cooke County, where he died on July 24, 1892.

Account by Barrett of the Gainesville
trial of a group of anti-secessionists in 1862, the hanging of the Unionists,
and the subsequent court martial of the jury members by Federal occupation
forces. The account was published in 1885 as The Great
Hanging at Gainesville, Cooke County, Texas.